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rainbowfic2015-06-26 08:38 pm
starphotographs) wrote in rainbowfic2015-06-26 08:38 pm
Dragon Scale Green 10, Milk Bottle 9
Name: starphotographs
Story: Universe B
Supplies and Styles: Graffiti (Milk Bottle, Dragon Scale Green, Summer Carnival), Canvas? (He’s supposed to be reminiscing, so I don’t know if it counts?)
Characters: Milo (POV), Kit, Edina
Colors: Dragon Scale Green 10 ("Old dragons, like old thorns, can still prick. And I am a very old dragon." ― Jane Yolen), Milk Bottle 9 (Fortune Teller)
Word Count: 2,985
Rating: PG
Warnings: Choose not to warn.
Summary: He only knew her briefly, and to her, it must have felt briefer still.
Note: Featuring a new character, who has only been in development for a few weeks!
Clockwork Hearts
Unable to sleep, I kneel on the mattress and rest my head against the window.
And I see her. Walking the grounds, checking what might need maintenance, enduring the cold like only she could, dark hair flagging out behind her in the icy wind, shining under the stars. Short sleeves; bare feet. Kicking up dust clouds.
Every night, she’s out there. Looking superhuman.
Every night, when her work is finally finished, she wanders out farther and farther, until she leaves the magnetic field behind, breaking through that invisible barrier, that protection she never needed. Farther and farther, until I watch her long hair lift slightly and float, without enough air to pull it down.
I don’t know where she goes. I always fall asleep before she turns around.
Every morning, I forget to ask her the same question.
What is our world really like, without what we do to make it our own?
*****
I met Edina when I was thirteen years old; at the end of that long night on the train from Newton to Yellowknife, shivering in the dark, chasing down my brother.
Riding clear to the other side of a planet gives you a lot of time to think. And when you’ve been separated from your only family, for whom you have made yourself responsible, and the lights in the train-car are all turned off, and most of the seats are empty, thinking might not be the best idea. I was hungry, and I was freezing, and I’d pretty much skipped sleeping to be there, but more than all of that, the thinking was the worst. By the time I finally reached my destination, my mind felt windblown and rickety. But, I was there. I’d made it happen. I’d come for him. And my god, I was there.
I was there, and I was practically in hysterics.
I was there, and I all but kicked down the door.
Of course, there’s no “kicking down” a door on Mars. The things are practically airlocks. It’s just one of those holdover expressions that people use even though they don’t make much sense anymore. And it’s how I felt. Like there was enough love and panic to topple buildings, all thrashing around inside me. What really happened was, I banged on the door a lot, and when someone finally opened it, they found a panting, shouting, snotty mess.
I was there, and I couldn’t control myself.
“…I’m here for Kittrell Powell!”
Someone thought to close the door behind me to lock out the cold, but no one said anything.
“Kittrell Powell! He’s seven, he’s about this tall, he has wavy hair, and glasses, and I’m his brother, where is he!?”
Still, no one said anything, but they all looked a little shocked. This probably meant they knew about me, in the abstract sense of knowing one of the new kids there had a teenage half-brother who had been placed in the Newton Boarding School, and thus wasn’t exactly likely to turn up on their doorstep. And yet, there I was.
Finally, someone said something.
“…Milo!”
Hearing his name in my voice had drawn Kit downstairs. An older woman grabbed him by the hand, said something that mostly consisted of later, later, later, and lead him back to the staircase. Apparently, I’d arrived before people were technically supposed to be awake, but I didn’t care. Neither did he.
We practically flew into each other’s arms, then the woman took his hand again, and there was more later, later, later, and I was standing in the middle of the entryway, hyperventilating and wiping my nose on my sleeve. There was a little bit of calm down, calm down, calm down, but I couldn’t. I wanted to either see Kit or go curl up in a ball somewhere.
I felt a hand on my shoulder.
It belonged to what I wanted to say was a young woman, but she looked like she could have been anywhere between twenty-five and fifty, depending on how the light played on her features. Her hair was shiny and dark. If I’d been in any kind of state to spot something looking inconsistent or off, I’d have noticed she was very simply dressed, but in a strange way. It wasn’t noon, and it wasn’t summer, but she wasn’t in layers. Her long, white arms were bare. Her hand moved down to the middle of my back, and, me sniffling, her silent, she lead me to the kitchen.
I sat with my head on the table, still shaking, until she placed some food in front of me. There was toast, which was alright. There was also a glass of milk, which I’d always hated, but mostly because the only milk I’d ever had was reconstituted from a can. I always thought it tasted like blood; protein and tin.
I was starving, and a guest, so I drank it anyway.
Finally, I calmed down.
Then, that ageless, dark-haired woman reached out and put her hand over mine.
“You’re brave.”
I started crying all over again.
*****
She was the only person I’d known who wasn’t really from Mars.
The story was, she was assembled in a factory on Earth, commissioned by a land developer who wanted an extra worker in his crew, one who didn’t need much air or warmth to survive, who could do what the others couldn‘t. Who would be durable enough to outlast them all.
And she did.
Edina says that she doesn’t remember much about Earth. Just her mind waking up at the factory, then three hours of trees and grass and highways rushing by a backseat window.
But, she remembers weeks in the starry cockpit, flying while the others slept.
She remembers years living underground, in the path of an old lava flow.
She remembers building her own life without realizing it, as the settlement expanded until there was no more “crew,” just people.
She remembers the founding of Gale City, then Yellowknife, then Sharpton, and she remembers watching them growing up around her.
She remembers when the Yellowknife Children’s and Elder’s Community went up, remembers interviews and being hired.
She remembers when her co-workers eventually became residents.
Edina remembers. Period. More than anyone else.
And now I remember. Because, in her clipped, quiet way, she told me the stories. And she showed me the pictures.
An empty red plain. A dusty ship. A blinking switchboard. A row of seedlings. A dark cavern. A man with a shovel. A cat in a cockpit, sleeping in the pilot’s chair.
A woman, her dark hair braided and twisted up in a bun, looking just to the left of the camera, smiling at the long years ahead.
*****
It was sometimes hard to remember that Edina wasn’t made like us, because she was just so normal. I mean, she was kind of weird, but anyone can be weird, so she was still pretty normal. But, sometimes, there was an uneasy moment or two when you looked at her and thought:
“Oh. Right.”
She never seemed mechanical or inhuman. She just had a way of reminding you that she was looking at life from an entirely different perspective.
For one thing, no one would let her cook complex food by herself. Even though she’d lived among humans for a good, long time, longer, in fact, than any human ever had, edibility was still kind of an abstract concept to her. She knew what counted as food, and she wouldn’t poison you or anything, but she’d never quite figured out how to put food together so it tasted alright. At mealtimes, she brought the drinks and took the plates.
And she knew intellectually that most of us were either left-handed or right-handed, but she wasn’t very good at applying that knowledge. If she didn’t favor any hand in particular, why would we? And how does that even make sense? Why use the same hand every time?
(Edina never liked ball games.)
When I took some time to think about it, I didn’t quite understand it, either. I always used my right hand, and my brother always used his left, but why?
Well, I knew why, but I didn’t know how it ended up working out that way.
Actually, that’s pretty much how it always went. Edina would say she didn’t understand something, and I’d realize that I didn’t really understand it, either.
I decided I would try.
So far, even after all this time, I haven’t gotten anywhere.
I decided I would keep trying.
*****
The Gale/Sharp/Yellowknife Metro Area, as the maps called it, or Curiosity Strip, as actual people called it, had a lot of things that other places didn’t. It was cold and dusty and run-down, but there were actually things to do. And you could get sick or injured without having to plan your death within the space of a week.
I’m not sure why this is. It could be that the land developer who got things started was in the right economic bracket to pay someone to build you an entire person, so it might just be a head start. Maybe there’s some unwritten rule that you need three towns to make an economy. It could have been the location. Gale city, in particular, was built over an old agricultural facility.
Edina took all of us down there sometimes, just to get us out of the house for a while. None of the workers minded; there were even guided tours, and you were free to look around as much as you wanted, as long as you left before the place closed, and didn‘t go in the composting area, which had been known to make people faint.
It was the first time I’d ever seen anything growing.
The facility wasn’t quite like being out in the open on Earth, but it was still like nothing I’d ever seen. Whole city blocks of subterranean fields, miles of gels and lights and hydroponics. There was even an underground orchard.
When I went there for the first time, I stood completely still, neck aching, staring up at the leaves. The sun lamps shining through stung my eyes. Edina came to stand beside me, and placed a hand on my shoulder, which practically made me jump out of my skin.
“…Sorry.”
“It’s alright… Edina?”
“Hm?”
“You said you saw trees like this on the way to the launch pad?”
She smiled.
“…Bigger.”
I took a minute to let that really absorb. Of course I knew about trees bigger than this. I might have been a world away from trees, but it’s not like I was illiterate. I just didn’t have the experience of them. Like how Edina watched all of us eat every day and still couldn’t imagine what tasted good.
What Kit had been doing with himself while I was wrenching my neck and contemplating the branches, I’m not sure. But, soon enough, he was back by my side again.
Then he darted up the tree, trying to get at a plum, and fell back down on his ass as soon as he’d gotten up.
Kit was just fine.
I was worried out of my mind and babbling.
Edina laughed.
There were a lot of things she couldn’t quite grasp, but humor? She understood it a damn sight better than I did.
*****
Edina made me feel small.
I don’t mean small like unimportant. I mean small like I really did matter.
Small like I’d never gotten the chance to be.
At the age I was, it should have been embarrassing, having her fuss over me like that, but, after having spent too long as the one doing the fussing, I couldn’t bring myself to care. And honestly, I loved it.
I loved that she set aside extra portions of food she knew I liked.
I loved that she asked me to help her with things, and I loved that she always told me she asked because I was so smart.
I loved that she was always interested in things I’d learned and wanted to tell her.
I loved that she always made a special effort to spend time with me.
I loved when she’d reach out and mess up my hair while I was sitting and reading.
I loved when she’d reach out and smooth it back down on the days we got to go outside.
To this day, I’m not sure why she got so attached to me in particular. Maybe she’d just never forgotten why I was there, and how I’d arrived. That I deserved good things because I’d been so brave. That I needed to be loved because I’d been so scared. But, that doesn’t really make much sense. Every one of us had been brave and scared before we got there. It was the nature of the place.
I guess she just liked me.
I liked that she liked me.
And I liked being the little brother.
*****
She didn’t say much. People didn’t always take her seriously.
I never understood this. In most cases, she was more than twice their age. And you could understand her just fine.
What’s the practical difference between “get it” and “could you go over there and get that for me, thanks?”
How is “Milo” any less clear than “good morning, Milo, how are you today?”
And isn’t “Kit, don’t touch” more to the point than “Kittrell, honey, put that down please?”
Not that it even matters.
Edina was so much more than words. Edina, simply, was.
What’s the practical difference between sitting together and watching the sunset and sitting together making small talk?
I took her seriously. At first, because I genuinely respected her.
Later, because not enough people did.
I was so young. A lot of people didn’t take me seriously, either, and I knew how it felt. I didn’t want to be a person who would make her feel like that. I cared about her too much.
I wanted to make her feel the way I felt when she said I was smart, that she needed my help. I wanted her to know that I thought she was smart, too. That I trusted her to always help me when I needed it.
Maybe that was what made me so special to her.
*****
I lived in Yellowknife for just under two years. It seems like such a short time now that I can’t believe she managed to make such an impression on me. Then I remember who she was, and I can‘t believe she couldn‘t have, no matter how briefly I knew her.
Someone with more memories than I thought could fit in one head. Someone who looked after countless people at the very ends and beginnings of their lives. Someone who expressed herself so well she barely needed words.
Someone who believed in me.
One day, we were sitting together on a boulder. It was one of those real nice days, the kind none of us could afford to waste. Those days when you can go outside without fortifying yourself in long underwear and heavy coats. Edina, as usual, was barefoot in the dust. I was wearing jeans with gaping holes in the knees and a light jacket an old man had lent me. The sleeves hung past my hands. I remember thinking it was interesting; that my knees weren’t cold. All the old people were lined up in chairs in front of the building. All the kids were out running around. I was sitting with Edina, and I’m glad I was.
I didn’t know it yet, but in a week, I’d be gone.
Anyway, we weren’t really doing much of anything. Sometimes, one of us would say something, but the other wasn’t obligated to answer. We each only asked that the other listen, and the request and the promise were both themselves unspoken. Being with her was easy that way. Sometimes, I actually respected her more, just for her silence.
When she spoke, I always knew it was important.
“Milo?”
“Yeah?”
“I’ve known a lot of people.”
There wasn’t much to say to that. It was just true. We sat on the cool rock. I drew a few lines in the dust with my boot.
“…You’re going to be a good man, Milo.”
*****
The last time I saw her, Kit and I were climbing into the car that would take us to the next place. Some huge compound in the Tharsis Quadrangle; one of those places that calls itself a school, like the one back in Newton did.
There wasn’t much of a goodbye.
Not because there wasn’t a chance, but because we each knew what the other would say. And that, like always, we didn’t need to say anything.
I watched her from the back window. She waved at me, one of those waves that isn’t quite a wave. The kind where you just raise your hand.
I raised my hand to her.
Then I watched her get smaller and smaller, until she turned around and walked back to the door.
Today, it’s been well over half a decade since I watched her step back inside. I guess it’s not that long, but I feel like I’ve lived a lot of life in that time. I adopted my brother. I got us our own place. I worked hard. I got to Earth. I nearly died. I survived.
I’ve seen trees that stretch up into the sky forever.
Sometimes, I wish she could see them again.
Sometimes, I wonder if she’s even still out there, utterly unchanged, walking barefoot towards the horizon, shaking off the cold, glowing under the stars, looking like a god.
Other times, I wonder if we‘ll ever find each other.
There’s a lot I want to tell her.
And I want to ask her if she was right.
Edina, am I a good man?
starphotographsStory: Universe B
Supplies and Styles: Graffiti (Milk Bottle, Dragon Scale Green, Summer Carnival), Canvas? (He’s supposed to be reminiscing, so I don’t know if it counts?)
Characters: Milo (POV), Kit, Edina
Colors: Dragon Scale Green 10 ("Old dragons, like old thorns, can still prick. And I am a very old dragon." ― Jane Yolen), Milk Bottle 9 (Fortune Teller)
Word Count: 2,985
Rating: PG
Warnings: Choose not to warn.
Summary: He only knew her briefly, and to her, it must have felt briefer still.
Note: Featuring a new character, who has only been in development for a few weeks!
Unable to sleep, I kneel on the mattress and rest my head against the window.
And I see her. Walking the grounds, checking what might need maintenance, enduring the cold like only she could, dark hair flagging out behind her in the icy wind, shining under the stars. Short sleeves; bare feet. Kicking up dust clouds.
Every night, she’s out there. Looking superhuman.
Every night, when her work is finally finished, she wanders out farther and farther, until she leaves the magnetic field behind, breaking through that invisible barrier, that protection she never needed. Farther and farther, until I watch her long hair lift slightly and float, without enough air to pull it down.
I don’t know where she goes. I always fall asleep before she turns around.
Every morning, I forget to ask her the same question.
What is our world really like, without what we do to make it our own?
I met Edina when I was thirteen years old; at the end of that long night on the train from Newton to Yellowknife, shivering in the dark, chasing down my brother.
Riding clear to the other side of a planet gives you a lot of time to think. And when you’ve been separated from your only family, for whom you have made yourself responsible, and the lights in the train-car are all turned off, and most of the seats are empty, thinking might not be the best idea. I was hungry, and I was freezing, and I’d pretty much skipped sleeping to be there, but more than all of that, the thinking was the worst. By the time I finally reached my destination, my mind felt windblown and rickety. But, I was there. I’d made it happen. I’d come for him. And my god, I was there.
I was there, and I was practically in hysterics.
I was there, and I all but kicked down the door.
Of course, there’s no “kicking down” a door on Mars. The things are practically airlocks. It’s just one of those holdover expressions that people use even though they don’t make much sense anymore. And it’s how I felt. Like there was enough love and panic to topple buildings, all thrashing around inside me. What really happened was, I banged on the door a lot, and when someone finally opened it, they found a panting, shouting, snotty mess.
I was there, and I couldn’t control myself.
“…I’m here for Kittrell Powell!”
Someone thought to close the door behind me to lock out the cold, but no one said anything.
“Kittrell Powell! He’s seven, he’s about this tall, he has wavy hair, and glasses, and I’m his brother, where is he!?”
Still, no one said anything, but they all looked a little shocked. This probably meant they knew about me, in the abstract sense of knowing one of the new kids there had a teenage half-brother who had been placed in the Newton Boarding School, and thus wasn’t exactly likely to turn up on their doorstep. And yet, there I was.
Finally, someone said something.
“…Milo!”
Hearing his name in my voice had drawn Kit downstairs. An older woman grabbed him by the hand, said something that mostly consisted of later, later, later, and lead him back to the staircase. Apparently, I’d arrived before people were technically supposed to be awake, but I didn’t care. Neither did he.
We practically flew into each other’s arms, then the woman took his hand again, and there was more later, later, later, and I was standing in the middle of the entryway, hyperventilating and wiping my nose on my sleeve. There was a little bit of calm down, calm down, calm down, but I couldn’t. I wanted to either see Kit or go curl up in a ball somewhere.
I felt a hand on my shoulder.
It belonged to what I wanted to say was a young woman, but she looked like she could have been anywhere between twenty-five and fifty, depending on how the light played on her features. Her hair was shiny and dark. If I’d been in any kind of state to spot something looking inconsistent or off, I’d have noticed she was very simply dressed, but in a strange way. It wasn’t noon, and it wasn’t summer, but she wasn’t in layers. Her long, white arms were bare. Her hand moved down to the middle of my back, and, me sniffling, her silent, she lead me to the kitchen.
I sat with my head on the table, still shaking, until she placed some food in front of me. There was toast, which was alright. There was also a glass of milk, which I’d always hated, but mostly because the only milk I’d ever had was reconstituted from a can. I always thought it tasted like blood; protein and tin.
I was starving, and a guest, so I drank it anyway.
Finally, I calmed down.
Then, that ageless, dark-haired woman reached out and put her hand over mine.
“You’re brave.”
I started crying all over again.
*****
She was the only person I’d known who wasn’t really from Mars.
The story was, she was assembled in a factory on Earth, commissioned by a land developer who wanted an extra worker in his crew, one who didn’t need much air or warmth to survive, who could do what the others couldn‘t. Who would be durable enough to outlast them all.
And she did.
Edina says that she doesn’t remember much about Earth. Just her mind waking up at the factory, then three hours of trees and grass and highways rushing by a backseat window.
But, she remembers weeks in the starry cockpit, flying while the others slept.
She remembers years living underground, in the path of an old lava flow.
She remembers building her own life without realizing it, as the settlement expanded until there was no more “crew,” just people.
She remembers the founding of Gale City, then Yellowknife, then Sharpton, and she remembers watching them growing up around her.
She remembers when the Yellowknife Children’s and Elder’s Community went up, remembers interviews and being hired.
She remembers when her co-workers eventually became residents.
Edina remembers. Period. More than anyone else.
And now I remember. Because, in her clipped, quiet way, she told me the stories. And she showed me the pictures.
An empty red plain. A dusty ship. A blinking switchboard. A row of seedlings. A dark cavern. A man with a shovel. A cat in a cockpit, sleeping in the pilot’s chair.
A woman, her dark hair braided and twisted up in a bun, looking just to the left of the camera, smiling at the long years ahead.
*****
It was sometimes hard to remember that Edina wasn’t made like us, because she was just so normal. I mean, she was kind of weird, but anyone can be weird, so she was still pretty normal. But, sometimes, there was an uneasy moment or two when you looked at her and thought:
“Oh. Right.”
She never seemed mechanical or inhuman. She just had a way of reminding you that she was looking at life from an entirely different perspective.
For one thing, no one would let her cook complex food by herself. Even though she’d lived among humans for a good, long time, longer, in fact, than any human ever had, edibility was still kind of an abstract concept to her. She knew what counted as food, and she wouldn’t poison you or anything, but she’d never quite figured out how to put food together so it tasted alright. At mealtimes, she brought the drinks and took the plates.
And she knew intellectually that most of us were either left-handed or right-handed, but she wasn’t very good at applying that knowledge. If she didn’t favor any hand in particular, why would we? And how does that even make sense? Why use the same hand every time?
(Edina never liked ball games.)
When I took some time to think about it, I didn’t quite understand it, either. I always used my right hand, and my brother always used his left, but why?
Well, I knew why, but I didn’t know how it ended up working out that way.
Actually, that’s pretty much how it always went. Edina would say she didn’t understand something, and I’d realize that I didn’t really understand it, either.
I decided I would try.
So far, even after all this time, I haven’t gotten anywhere.
I decided I would keep trying.
The Gale/Sharp/Yellowknife Metro Area, as the maps called it, or Curiosity Strip, as actual people called it, had a lot of things that other places didn’t. It was cold and dusty and run-down, but there were actually things to do. And you could get sick or injured without having to plan your death within the space of a week.
I’m not sure why this is. It could be that the land developer who got things started was in the right economic bracket to pay someone to build you an entire person, so it might just be a head start. Maybe there’s some unwritten rule that you need three towns to make an economy. It could have been the location. Gale city, in particular, was built over an old agricultural facility.
Edina took all of us down there sometimes, just to get us out of the house for a while. None of the workers minded; there were even guided tours, and you were free to look around as much as you wanted, as long as you left before the place closed, and didn‘t go in the composting area, which had been known to make people faint.
It was the first time I’d ever seen anything growing.
The facility wasn’t quite like being out in the open on Earth, but it was still like nothing I’d ever seen. Whole city blocks of subterranean fields, miles of gels and lights and hydroponics. There was even an underground orchard.
When I went there for the first time, I stood completely still, neck aching, staring up at the leaves. The sun lamps shining through stung my eyes. Edina came to stand beside me, and placed a hand on my shoulder, which practically made me jump out of my skin.
“…Sorry.”
“It’s alright… Edina?”
“Hm?”
“You said you saw trees like this on the way to the launch pad?”
She smiled.
“…Bigger.”
I took a minute to let that really absorb. Of course I knew about trees bigger than this. I might have been a world away from trees, but it’s not like I was illiterate. I just didn’t have the experience of them. Like how Edina watched all of us eat every day and still couldn’t imagine what tasted good.
What Kit had been doing with himself while I was wrenching my neck and contemplating the branches, I’m not sure. But, soon enough, he was back by my side again.
Then he darted up the tree, trying to get at a plum, and fell back down on his ass as soon as he’d gotten up.
Kit was just fine.
I was worried out of my mind and babbling.
Edina laughed.
There were a lot of things she couldn’t quite grasp, but humor? She understood it a damn sight better than I did.
Edina made me feel small.
I don’t mean small like unimportant. I mean small like I really did matter.
Small like I’d never gotten the chance to be.
At the age I was, it should have been embarrassing, having her fuss over me like that, but, after having spent too long as the one doing the fussing, I couldn’t bring myself to care. And honestly, I loved it.
I loved that she set aside extra portions of food she knew I liked.
I loved that she asked me to help her with things, and I loved that she always told me she asked because I was so smart.
I loved that she was always interested in things I’d learned and wanted to tell her.
I loved that she always made a special effort to spend time with me.
I loved when she’d reach out and mess up my hair while I was sitting and reading.
I loved when she’d reach out and smooth it back down on the days we got to go outside.
To this day, I’m not sure why she got so attached to me in particular. Maybe she’d just never forgotten why I was there, and how I’d arrived. That I deserved good things because I’d been so brave. That I needed to be loved because I’d been so scared. But, that doesn’t really make much sense. Every one of us had been brave and scared before we got there. It was the nature of the place.
I guess she just liked me.
I liked that she liked me.
And I liked being the little brother.
She didn’t say much. People didn’t always take her seriously.
I never understood this. In most cases, she was more than twice their age. And you could understand her just fine.
What’s the practical difference between “get it” and “could you go over there and get that for me, thanks?”
How is “Milo” any less clear than “good morning, Milo, how are you today?”
And isn’t “Kit, don’t touch” more to the point than “Kittrell, honey, put that down please?”
Not that it even matters.
Edina was so much more than words. Edina, simply, was.
What’s the practical difference between sitting together and watching the sunset and sitting together making small talk?
I took her seriously. At first, because I genuinely respected her.
Later, because not enough people did.
I was so young. A lot of people didn’t take me seriously, either, and I knew how it felt. I didn’t want to be a person who would make her feel like that. I cared about her too much.
I wanted to make her feel the way I felt when she said I was smart, that she needed my help. I wanted her to know that I thought she was smart, too. That I trusted her to always help me when I needed it.
Maybe that was what made me so special to her.
I lived in Yellowknife for just under two years. It seems like such a short time now that I can’t believe she managed to make such an impression on me. Then I remember who she was, and I can‘t believe she couldn‘t have, no matter how briefly I knew her.
Someone with more memories than I thought could fit in one head. Someone who looked after countless people at the very ends and beginnings of their lives. Someone who expressed herself so well she barely needed words.
Someone who believed in me.
One day, we were sitting together on a boulder. It was one of those real nice days, the kind none of us could afford to waste. Those days when you can go outside without fortifying yourself in long underwear and heavy coats. Edina, as usual, was barefoot in the dust. I was wearing jeans with gaping holes in the knees and a light jacket an old man had lent me. The sleeves hung past my hands. I remember thinking it was interesting; that my knees weren’t cold. All the old people were lined up in chairs in front of the building. All the kids were out running around. I was sitting with Edina, and I’m glad I was.
I didn’t know it yet, but in a week, I’d be gone.
Anyway, we weren’t really doing much of anything. Sometimes, one of us would say something, but the other wasn’t obligated to answer. We each only asked that the other listen, and the request and the promise were both themselves unspoken. Being with her was easy that way. Sometimes, I actually respected her more, just for her silence.
When she spoke, I always knew it was important.
“Milo?”
“Yeah?”
“I’ve known a lot of people.”
There wasn’t much to say to that. It was just true. We sat on the cool rock. I drew a few lines in the dust with my boot.
“…You’re going to be a good man, Milo.”
The last time I saw her, Kit and I were climbing into the car that would take us to the next place. Some huge compound in the Tharsis Quadrangle; one of those places that calls itself a school, like the one back in Newton did.
There wasn’t much of a goodbye.
Not because there wasn’t a chance, but because we each knew what the other would say. And that, like always, we didn’t need to say anything.
I watched her from the back window. She waved at me, one of those waves that isn’t quite a wave. The kind where you just raise your hand.
I raised my hand to her.
Then I watched her get smaller and smaller, until she turned around and walked back to the door.
Today, it’s been well over half a decade since I watched her step back inside. I guess it’s not that long, but I feel like I’ve lived a lot of life in that time. I adopted my brother. I got us our own place. I worked hard. I got to Earth. I nearly died. I survived.
I’ve seen trees that stretch up into the sky forever.
Sometimes, I wish she could see them again.
Sometimes, I wonder if she’s even still out there, utterly unchanged, walking barefoot towards the horizon, shaking off the cold, glowing under the stars, looking like a god.
Other times, I wonder if we‘ll ever find each other.
There’s a lot I want to tell her.
And I want to ask her if she was right.
Edina, am I a good man?
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I... Actually have no idea what will happen with regards to them. Something to think about!
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Thank you! :D
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